


Two out of Three

by Cephalopodsalad17



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Brainwashed Sex, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Forced Pregnancy, HYDRA Trash Party, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Non-Consensual Artificial Insemination, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Bucky Barnes, Omega Steve Rogers, coerced sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephalopodsalad17/pseuds/Cephalopodsalad17
Summary: As young un-bonded omegas before and during the war, Steve and Bucky used to nest together to help with their synced heats. After two out of three helicarriers sucessfully carry out Project Insight, Steve finds himself in hiding with a barely recognisable Bucky. Steve's lost, unable to do more than focus on keeping Bucky safe while HYDRA uses the panic created by Insight to secretly take over the US government. Steve doesn't know how they got away after he passed out on Insight C, and the bondscar on Bucky's neck is only one more thing Bucky won't talk about.Then HYDRA-backed legislation makes it illegal for omegas to buy heat-suppressants and Steve comes home to discover the identity of the Winter Soldier's alpha under the worst possible circumstances - with Bucky knotted and nonverbal. There's no way to fight and no chance to run, and the alpha has a proposition for Steve.With Project Insight off the ground, supersoldiers aren't as necessary as they used to be. Steve and Bucky can be left as they were found... IF Steve agrees to let the alpha try to breed both of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on mcu_trashmeme, which appears to have been deleted.

A week before Halloween, the house started to smell like cookies and cake. It smelled like the sweet tang of blueberries. It smelled like the creaminess of soft sweet mild cheese. The smell was rich and thick and Steve wanted to bury his face in it and marinate in it forever. It smelled like the blueberry cheesecake Steve hadn’t been able to eat since the ice because it smelled enough like Bucky’s heat pheromones to make him cry.

He wanted to cry now. They weren’t ready for this. Steve couldn’t even stay with him. He was expected to work today. Steve couldn’t show any more concern for his nestpartner than would be considered normal. It didn’t matter that Bucky was burning up, pheromones begging for the attention of an absent bondmate who Steve wouldn't let into the nest even if the alpha could find them. Bucky wouldn’t talk about it, but Steve was sure the alpha was HYDRA. The way Bucky smelled, he was honestly shocked there weren’t _more_ scars on his neck. He’d always been kinda single-minded during heat and HYDRA was undoubtedly full of rapist assholes who could have taken advantage.

“Come on, Buck. You gotta eat this,” Steve pleaded. He might feel more prepared to leave him alone if he knew Bucky had had some calories and fluids.

It was no good. Bucky turned his head away from the bowl of turkey and rice soup Steve wanted him to taste. “No,” he growled.

The mechanical alarm clock on Steve’s dresser began to ring and Steve wanted to scream. He had to go to work. He’d already scheduled heat-leave for two days from now, when _he_ was due. Bucky’s had come on unexpectedly during the night, overpowering the more subtle scents of Steve’s budding pre-heat. Neither of them had known where the Winter Soldier had been in his cycle, but hadn’t thought they’d be so close to syncing like they used to. Bucky said he didn’t remember and being bonded should have synced him to the alpha’s rut instead. Here they were, though, and Steve didn’t see how he could leave him like this when Bucky still sometimes barely remembered how to eat and bathe and sleep under _normal_ circumstances.

He caught himself whining with Bucky, twin sounds of omega misery. The alarm clock continued to ring until Seve wrenched himself up out of the nest to slam a hand down on the alarm switch. Something crunched in its internal workings and it stopped ticking too. At the spike of Bucky’s stress pheromones, Steve whined again, fighting not to outright sob. “Please, Bucky, you need the energy and fluids. I gotta know you’re okay while I’m at work.”

Fuck, this was wrong. He couldn’t count how many times they’d played the opposite roles. Winnie Barnes had probably been the happiest person in Brooklyn when Steve had presented as an omega. At the time, despite her blessing for them to nest together, Steve had resented her relief that Bucky wouldn’t be tying himself to a sickly little alpha. Alpha-alpha relationships were considered deviant and therefore illegal, but it wasn’t considered queer for omegas or betas to pair with each other. Relationships hadn’t been considered serious without an alpha involved. Most omegas shared a nest with an omega friend until one or both found an alpha. Mrs. Barnes had hoped Bucky might settle down with Steve instead of ruining his reputation looking for company at the dance halls. Steve’s ma had been relieved that his presentation meant he and Bucky could take care of each other, but his chances of attracting an alpha were low. Omegas were supposed to be sweet, submissive, beautiful, domestically skilled, and capable of bearing healthy pups. Aside from his art, Steve was none of those things. The fact that Bucky’s assistance as a nestpartner would reduce the physical stress of heat and increase Steve’s life expectancy was cold comfort when general attitudes said Steve should be sterilized for the good of the race.

These days, it wasn’t supposed to be common for an omega’s heat to put them in serious danger. There were various forms of suppressants, scent therapy packages, and so many improvements in omega health care Steve could barely wrap his head around some of it. There were special meals-on-wheels programs, with beta delivery drivers only, for unpartnered omegas who couldn’t take care of feeding themselves during a heat, and most cities over a few thousand had some sort of free clinic with a heat shelter.

Or, those things _had_ been options until Project Insight and HYDRA’s clandestine take-over of the US government under the guise of declaring martial law. Now, suppressants were illegal for single omegas. Only bonded alphas were allowed to purchase them. Omega health services were required to register and report omegas without beta or alpha support in case those omegas became desperate enough to try suppressants. The latest headlines weren’t about HYDRA’s growing power. Instead, the news was full of alleged new research that proved suppressants were damaging for omegas who had never been successfully bred.

Lies, but lies HYDRA’s supporters were getting away with.

Steve, now a wanted domestic terrorist, had barely escaped DC with his life and his nestpartner, and not through any action of his own. Steve had lost his comms during the struggle on the helicarrier, but the ships had begun to fire and he’d thought Hill had done it. He thought they’d _won_. It wasn’t until he was falling into the river that he realized the other two carriers had fired on Insight C prematurely before the new targeting chip could do its work. He’d drifted back into semiconsciousness only to find himself restrained on an emergency medical stretcher on a quinjet with a wild-eyed Winter Soldier at his side. He’d passed out again right after, so he didn’t know who had been flying or how they had gotten as far as they had without being challenged or shot down. By the time he regained full consciousness, he and Bucky had been hidden away in a hotel room in southern Illinois. He’d been mostly out of it as Bucky drove them across what must have been the Mississippi and then along country roads north through seemingly endless rolling hills of mud, young crops, and bright greenery.

They’d knocked around a few places in Iowa, and Wisconsin before ending up in a tiny place in Minnesota. The town could barely be called such. The population was less than two hundred, mostly clustered around a food processing plant. The town didn’t have a gas station, much less any sort of clinic or pharmacy. There was one other source of traffic in the town, a cash-only bar and grill on the rural highway that ran past the plant. The Help Wanted sign in the window of Erdal’s Family Bar and Grill was the only reason Steve and Bucky had stopped and then stayed for the past few months. Undocumented workers made up a significant part of the town’s population. A couple more, even as physically striking as the supersoldiers, weren’t anything the locals weren’t used to keeping under the radar. Steve had started with dishes and cleanup. Once Mrs. Erdal found out Steve didn’t know how to cook anything but soup, she insisted on keeping him after the rest of her employees left and instructing him. No _wonder_ he didn’t have an alpha yet when he looked and acted too much like an alpha himself.

It was nothing Steve hadn’t heard before, but he didn’t have any real excuse to get out of it. Nora Erdal might be 72 and 5’1”, but she was a pillar of the community they were attempting to blend into. Bucky baked, for the restaurant sometimes, but mostly from home so he could make just enough deliveries to keep up the appearance of a home business. Between that stereotypical sign of omega-ness, general moody skittishness, and the bond-scar on his neck, Steve barely had to say anything to have Mr. and Mrs. Erdal convinced Steve had talked Bucky into leaving an abusive alpha with him. It was sort of true.

They couldn’t flaunt the money Bucky had somehow acquired while Steve was recovering from their fight. A mystery would stir up more talk than the slightly scandalous and pitiable cover of a wannabe alpha hiding a nestpartner from a bad alpha mate. That meant Steve had to have a visible source of income so Bucky could stay safely at home.

That meant he had to go to work.

It wasn’t a long walk. They were subletting the house behind the restaurant. The Erdals owned it but had given up living in it because it had warped wooden steps going up to the front door and no bedrooms on ground level. At 72 and 79 respectively, Nora and Sander Erdal now lived in a flat ranch-style next to the restaurant. If neither of them was in yet, Steve would have to explain himself to Cecilia, the 19-year-old omega manager who hated him for earning Mrs. Erdal’s attention. Cecilia might complain about him on the Internet, and he couldn’t take the risk she had photos of him.

It was useless to explain any of that to Bucky in this state.

Their nest was in the corner of the master bedroom. They’d moved both dressers to close off most of the other two sides, leaving only a supersoldier-sized gap for access. The mattress and all the bedding in the house made a snug nest for the two of them.

It smelled like them. Steve didn’t want to leave it, to leave Bucky.

He was roughly ten minutes late by the time he finally got a bite of food into Bucky to stimulate his appetite. At least he could be fairly certain he’d hear if Bucky shouted for him. To his relief, Cecilia only rolled her eyes and put him straight to work scrubbing pans in the back. She went back to watch the front of the house without giving him a chance to explain, even though he knew he must reek of Bucky's heat and his own preheat.

Mrs. Erdal confirmed this when she arrived and immediately wrinkled her nose at him. “Go take a shower, Tristan. We want the customers interested in the menu, not you.”

Steve flushed. “I would ma’am, but if I go home I don’t think I’ll make it back to work for the rest of the week.”

She hummed thoughtfully as she squeezed past him to open the kitchen window. The late October air was somewhere below freezing and the chill cleared his head somewhat.

“I hope Benji isn’t having too rough a time of it. Came on suddenly, did it?”

“I don’t think he’s ever spent even part of a heat alone,” Steve admitted, avoiding her eyes.

The heavy _tock_ of the time hitting eleven o’clock reminded him that he’d broken their alarm clock. It was a fifteen-minute drive to the closest place with a retail outlet and they’d gotten rid of the car soon after arriving. This tiny town was nearly invisible. In a larger place, they’d have to worry about cameras and HYDRA’s drones. They tried not to leave if it could be avoided. There were more than 850 towns or cities in Minnesota. Anyplace with a population over five hundred had at least one alleged DHS drone spying for HYDRA. All it would take was one mistake. Steve wasn’t sure yet how to get around the need to go.

“Tristan,” said Nora Erdal, still looking up at him.

Steve startled. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m a little distracted.”

“I can see that,” she said dryly. “How about you finish those pans and the burger prep. Let’s try to get you out of here before noon. Sander is too old to stop any of our alpha customers from taking you home for dessert.”

“I can…” Clenching his jaw, Steve barely resisted the urge to snap that he could take care of himself. She was a sweet old lady who was trying to help him. “Thank you. Sorry about this. I didn’t want to leave you short-handed all week.”

She patted his arm. “It’s alright, dear. I know what omega biology is like, never mind how many years it’s been since I last heated up.”

Between pheromone blockers and the artificial scents that seemed to be the norm these days, Steve should have been fine to work through the early stages of pre-heat. Of course, that didn’t account for the effect of Bucky’s rapid onset heat on Steve’s hormone levels. He didn’t really notice his own pheromones, but he wasn’t oblivious to the attention he was drawing.

It was weird to realize that it was only the fact of being the government’s super soldier, not the size of his body, that had protected him before. A big omega was _less_ , not more. Steve had been seen as less as a small omega too. Too strong now and too weak then. Maybe no omega could be perfect by society’s standards. Captain America had been a scandal with Steve’s omega nature in the perfect alpha body.

Right now, none of that would matter. Almost any alpha would want him now. Heat pheromones trumped any other attribute which might discourage mating.

Mrs. Erdal was right that he should go home and avoid the risk. He didn’t _want_ a stranger’s knot, but physical strength didn’t mean much once rational thought gave way to instinctive drives.

It was hard to focus on what he needed to do. His thoughts kept drifting to Bucky and the safety of their life here. Twice, he washed a clean pan. He almost put a wet sponge on the grill. He couldn’t remember ever being so distracted in preheat, especially surrounded by only omegas.

It wasn’t noon yet when Cecilia came over to him with her nose wrinkled in disgust. “The whole restaurant smells like we're cooking crabapples,” she complained. “Why are you still here?”

“Tristan,” said Mrs. Erdal. “Maybe you should go now.” She turned on all the fans and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Do you and Benjamin have enough supplies to stay at home all week?”

Not really, but they would get by. They always had. “We’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to check on you in a few days?” she pressed. That was the downside of her taking them under her wing.

Steve shook his head. “I get... defensive,” he said. It was the best excuse he had without saying anything about Bucky. “We’ll be okay. I made a lot of soup.”

She frowned. “Fruit? Chocolate? Ice?”

Steve hid a wince. “Chocolate, fruit, and cookies. Ice cream just in case.”

“Well, call if you need ice or ginger ale or anything. I don’t like the idea of you two all alone.”

“We won’t be alone,” Steve promised, smile sudden and buoyant.

He didn’t know how right he was.


	2. Chapter 2

This would be Steve's second heat since the ice. Heat had always been more trouble than it was worth. If he had ever had an alpha, maybe he would have felt differently, but to him it was mostly a week of blurry biologically driven misery during which he inevitably lost both income and weight he couldn’t afford to lose. After the serum, heat took less of a toll on his health and finances, but it still wasn’t anything he would voluntarily experience again.

SHIELD had insisted that Steve cycle after being thawed out. He’d hated it maybe more than ever. For the first time in his life, he had been truly alone during heat. Even before Steve had rescued Bucky and the 107th, he had been surrounded by others both times the problem came up. The other USO omegas hadn’t been his nestpartner, but had at least kept him company and made sure he was fed and hydrated.

Steve had had nearly two years to acclimate. With SHIELD, he had specially formulated suppressants that had kept heat at bay, but he had still been beset with offers, insinuations, questions, and misplaced reassurances. Very few actually wanted Steve Rogers’ personality or Captain America’s body. He didn’t act or look right for an omega and everyone knew it. Plenty of alphas would have claimed him for Captain America’s status, but they would have eventually disregarded the person attached. Steve wasn’t fooled, even if he had sometimes felt alone enough he wished he could be. Fortunately, that very status had kept him safe from anyone who might otherwise have thought they could get away without asking at all.

As a consequence, Steve hadn’t shared a heat with anyone since before Bucky’s presumed death. That didn’t mean he wasn’t self-aware enough to realize how desperately lonely he had been in those two years. Even if he hadn’t been, everyone told him he had to _move on_. He’d thought about it. He’d thought about going off at least the scent blockers, if not his heat suppressants. He’d thought about trying to date or about letting one of the SHIELD alphas attempt to court him.

Specifically, he’d thought about Natasha Romanoff and Brock Rumlow. They knew him as well as he let anyone know him in this time. Rumlow had made cautious overtures a few months into Steve’s work with STRIKE and taken rejection in stride. Natasha had tried to set him up with others, but he liked her better than any of the alpha or betas she suggested. He didn’t think she was mated. Natasha Romanoff was a consummate professional and a spy. Being mated might well be a liability in her line of work. Maybe she had something going on with Barton. If he’d had time to get to know Sam Wilson before his new life had been upended, they might have made a go of dating, but it was hard to know with as little time as they’d spent together. Steve didn’t want to bond anyway. He wanted Bucky. He wanted Peggy. He wanted his Commandos. The thought of tying himself permanently to anyone else filled him with the same restless horror and fury it always had.

It didn’t matter, in the end. Sam and Natasha were lost to him and Rumlow had been HYDRA all along. He didn’t know what had happened to anyone who had been at the Triskelion with him, not for sure. Hill was probably dead, but there hadn’t been anything in the news about Sam or Natasha. The remaining, uninvolved, Avengers had been publicly cleared of suspicion of harboring the fugitive Captain America (He’d seen Stark on the news looking shaken and pale but selling the popular lies: poor Captain America! an omega out of time, decieved and misled by Nick Fury, never recovered from being at war, unstable, dangerous, any information, _please_ ), and Steve wasn’t stupid enough to try to contact them. All he could do was survive and help Bucky. Bucky was never mentioned on the news.

There were more than a few cars in the parking lot at the side of the restaurant. Steve paused to breathe slowly and deeply, _scenting_ , before he realized what he was doing and turned for home.

It was natural to think of attractive alphas now when his body was on the verge of demanding a knot. It didn’t mean anything. If Steve spent all his time feeling bad over idle fantasies, he’d never be able to work with an alpha ever again. Still, he could almost _taste_ the comfort of a familiar alpha at the back of his throat when he inhaled deeply. Phantom scents weren’t an uncommon experience after trauma or abrupt loss. The SHIELD doctors had all told him as much when they made him go through his cycle. Steve didn’t even know what any of the alphas he’d known would smell like in response to heat. It was just his brain trying to ease the anxiety he had been feeling since Bucky’s heat struck.

Bucky. Steve could think of Bucky. He stood on the steps outside their front door and panted, mouth open, lips drawn back over his teeth, trying to get his pheromones under some sort of control. He couldn’t go to Bucky reeking of distress. He wouldn’t. He’d make this heat as painless for him as possible.

Once he felt more settled, he opened the door and locked it behind him before quickly ascending the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor. They were painted a neutral cream color, but the highest-traffic spots were worn through to show pale green over the original wood. There were fourteen steps. He had to focus on those details, or the combination of Bucky’s blueberry cheesecake heat pheromones and his own imagination would drive all thought from his head before he was ready. The distress was gone from Bucky’s scent now, at least. That was good. That was better than Steve had dared to expect. A lot better.

The pheromones in the air smelled so _good_. Steve thought he’d remembered Bucky’s heat-scent clearly, but it was so much richer and deeper, like the blueberries and cream cheese had been topped with something strong and salty and savory, nearly sharp, like buttered salted popcorn with the burn of a whiff of some kind of nutty extract… Oh, god, was that the lingering effect of Bucky’s alpha Steve was salivating over? He knew Bucky wasn’t pregnant. He hoped Bucky didn’t notice his changed scent, but maybe it wouldn’t bother him. He might not remember anything different.

Steve stopped outside the bedroom door and tried to get his distress pheromones under control again. He wasn’t all the way given over to heat yet. He had to take care of anything Bucky needed before he could let himself settle in with him.

“Bucky?” he called, not wanting to startle the other omega. His nestpartner. A man he hadn’t shared a heat with in over seventy years and knew had been horribly abused during that time apart. His best friend, no matter how distant he had seemed since their reunion.

He heard a low moan over the sound of shifting bedding. That was acknowledgement enough, he hoped.

Steve turned the brass door knob slowly, wincing at the horrible squeak it made. He could see the back of Bucky’s head through the space between the dressers. Steve frowned. Even before the war, putting his back to the mouth of the nest was an abnormally vulnerable position for Bucky to take when smell and touch eclipsed every other sense into near-uselessness. “Buck?”

Bucky’s breath hitched and he gasped wordlessly, head tossing. Steve could imagine him touching himself and felt the damp swelling warmth of his own answering arousal. He couldn’t _wait_ to relearn Bucky’s body and bring his friend all the pleasure they had missed since the 1940s.

Steve undressed without particular care for the clothes he had worn to work. He wouldn’t need them for the next week and they’d have to be washed and ironed anyway. He kicked them into a corner with his shoes and grabbed two of the water bottles stacked in the minifridge they had borrowed for the occasion. “Bucky? I’m getting water. Do you,” he swallowed after a surge of almost painful lust, “do you need anything to eat?”

There was no answer. Steve took one of the bottles to hold in his teeth and grabbed a plastic box of sugar-dusted cinnamon applesauce cookies Bucky had made.

He stopped at the edge of the nest and went to duck under the faded pink and green floral sheet they’d used to make a canopy over the two dressers.

Steve froze.

Brock Rumlow smiled lazily at him. “Well, if you’re offering. Hey, Cap.” He lounged naked against the far wall of the nest.

 

It was shocking to Steve to scent Rumlow’s complete comfort in that moment of first confrontation. Steve should have smelled nervousness, excitement, guilt, something _off_ in an intruder’s discomfort. Rumlow therefor, was _not_ an intruder. He had been welcomed into their nest.

Bucky’s nest.

It was _Bucky’s_ legs squeezing firmly around the alpha’s bare midsection and _Bucky’s_ half-hard cock in the alpha’s casual grip and _Bucky_ on his back making little half-sounds of mindless pleasure while the alpha ground his knot into _Bucky’s_ desperate body.

Steve had never seen an alpha with an omega in heat. He had always assumed they’d be as overwhelmed as omegas. That was what he’d been told to expect by school and stories and porn. Instead, here was Brock Rumlow, alpha knot buried inside Steve’s nestpartner, calm and comfortable and controlled.

It made Steve want to tremble all through, and there was a prickle in his ass which told him he was producing more slick. He was frozen mid-action, inhaling more and more of the combined pheromones and _this shouldn’t be getting him hot._ He should be- He should-

The plastic cap of the bottle of water scraped through his teeth as it crashed to the floor.

“Rumlow,” Steve said. The second bottle crinkled loudly in his grip. A little more pressure and it would burst. Slowly, telegraphing the motions, he put both water and cookies on the floor inches from Bucky’s head.

“Why don’t you come in and join us, omega?” Rumlow said softly. All the insistent power of an alpha’s voice was in that barely disguised command, but Steve hadn’t been susceptible to that since Project Rebirth.

He grit his teeth. “I don’t think you’d like what I want to do to you,” Steve said honestly, coldly.

The alpha shook his head and chuckled at him.

Steve wanted to melt. Steve wanted to kill him.

“I don’t think you’ll do anything to hurt our mutual friend here,” said Rumlow.

“An omega already in heat can’t give consent.” Steve willed his voice not to shake.

“You’re in pre-heat. I think you’re just fine to negotiate,” Rumlow purred.

“Bucky wasn’t.”

Rumlow shifted in the nest until Bucky tossed his head again. Steve followed his eyes unwillingly.

There was a fresh bite overlaying the matching bondscar.

“The Soldier made his choice,” Rumlow said, half gentle and half smug.

“You’re his alpha.” Steve had tried to get Bucky to talk about anything, anything at all. That hadn’t worked, so Steve had tried talking _to_ him to fill the silences and the spaces between them. He’d _told_ Bucky about Rumlow’s flirting and Rumlow’s betrayal. Bucky had said _nothing._

“That. That doesn’t make what you’re doing not rape,” Steve insisted.

“You know,” Rumlow said conversationally, ignoring his complaint entirely, “I was breeding him once, a few years ago, and he wouldn’t stop calling out. I asked him who he was calling for. Guess what he told me.”

Steve didn’t have to.

He tried to not think that _breeding_ might mean more than slang for rutting an omega in heat. HYDRA had held Bucky for seventy years and Bucky was strong and beautiful.

“He told me his nestmate was supposed to be there so I could take care of _him_ too.”

Sickened and horribly, helplessly, aroused, Steve said nothing. That had always been the fantasy for them before the war, that Bucky would find an alpha who would keep them both and wouldn’t care that Steve was no good for having pups. During the more lucid spells of their heats, Bucky would often harp on the subject to the extent that Steve more than once felt the need to smack him with a pillow to get him off the topic.

“Now, who would that be, omega?”

Shuddering, Steve shook his head.

“Come here, omega,” coaxed Rumlow. “I’ll have you either way, but this doesn’t have to be a HYDRA agent raping Captain America.”

Steve moved a half-step back. “Damn right it doesn’t because I’m not getting in that nest with you. All I have to do is wait for your knot to go down and get Bucky away from here.”

Rumlow sighed and stopped his absent petting of Bucky’s cock.

Bucky whined softly in protest and Steve had to bite back the instinctive whimper he wanted to answer Bucky’s frustration with.

Slowly, Rumlow gestured to the earpiece he’d been wearing the whole time. Steve hadn’t noticed anything beyond the fact that the alpha was both present and naked.

“Not that easy, Cap. Did you think I came here alone? If I don’t give the right signal at the right time, Rollins will have the full might of HYDRA crashing down on your cute little no-horse town. He’s a good beta. He’ll do what’s necessary. We’ll take the two of you back into the fold and have you both singing Hail HYDRA in no time.”

“I’d rather die.” That, at least, came out steady.

“I’m sure you would, but that’s not an option, Cap. You’ve proven you won’t kill our Soldier. If you’re dead, what’s to stop us from doing what we want with him?”

Nothing. Rumlow was right. Steve couldn’t let that happen.

But.

“What guarantee is there that you don’t plan to do that anyway? Don’t try to tell me you're in love with Bucky.”

Rumlow snorted softly, derisive. “Love is a weakness and I’ve never met the Bucky you knew. He’s been dead decades, Cap. No, I want the Soldier and I want you. I want the beautiful and deadly omegas I’ve seen on missions. I want to hear you beg me for my knot, my protection, and my teeth in your neck. I want you to let me breed you, and bond you, and make you mine. Both of you.”

Steve couldn’t believe he was listening to this, but he couldn’t help it, leaning in like Rumlow was hypnotizing him. “You’re insane,” he heard himself say faintly. “Why the hell would…”

“Because if you do,” said Rumlow, “I won’t share your location with HYDRA, and I'll leave you alone until you need your alpha. Project Insight is up. You could be useful, but you're not really _needed_.”

_“What?”_

“Let me take you through this heat and do my best to breed you both and I swear we’ll leave you be. Take it or leave it, Captain. If I turn you in they’ll let me fuck you anyway. I already tamed your friend and HYDRA always wants more Soldiers. I’d prefer to keep you to myself, but I’m willing to compromise. Are you?”


	3. Chapter 3

_No_ , said Steve, but only in his head. He couldn’t say that if it meant HYDRA ended up with two supersoldiers. He wasn’t delusional. If HYDRA had broken Bucky, they would break Steve. Saying _no_ to Rumlow would mean saying _yes_ to HYDRA, sooner or later. They might even let him stay Captain America - after a suitable public sentence - and fight with the Avengers, but not before they made certain he was loyal.

He hadn’t appreciated just how loyal the brainwashing must have made Bucky, but he had to be if he’d let Rumlow in. They had already lost because Steve couldn’t leave Bucky.

 _No._ It was a simple denial.

_No, I don’t want to._

His body did, but it wasn’t as easy as that. Steve could think, so Steve could still fight and lose and torture himself over the losing.

“How long do I have to decide?” he whispered.

“Maybe another ten minutes until my knot goes down,” Rumlow said immediately. “But really, what is there to decide? The Soldier is mine and you will be too. We can do it here in the nest you made with the supplies you gathered and I’ll be your alpha, or we can do it with you restrained on a lab table with a bunch of scientists observing and I’ll be the HYDRA commander who found the Winter Soldier and conquered Captain America.”

The buttered popcorn and walnut extract scent intensified and Steve realized with sort of dull horror that Rumlow _really_ seemed to like the idea of raping him in front of witnesses. “You say you want to be my alpha, our alpha, but you like the idea of forcing it. Why would I believe you won’t do both?”

Rumlow’s eyebrows went up. “Did you think I wanted you willing? I’m not crazy. You’re enhanced. I’m a strong alpha, but you’re both stronger. That’s the attraction. I want your submission. I don’t care if you’re gritting your teeth and bearing it the whole time. You’re strong and I want to be the one to put you in your place. Not as a prisoner surrendering to your enemies, but as an omega submitting to your alpha. I’ll take if it’s what I can get, but the thought of you two hidden away where only I can find you and put you to the use nature intended?” His pheromones spiked, and Steve fought the urge to lean closer. “That’s what gets my blood going.” He rocked his hips meaningfully and Bucky moaned loudly.

Male omegas in heat rarely maintained a full erection, but Steve felt his cock twitch at the sound of Bucky’s pleasure. The slick would be dripping out of him any minute now. He couldn’t look down, couldn’t look away from Rumlow’s face, or he would fall into the nest and be entirely at Rumlow’s mercy.

“You like that I’m strong and omega?” he asked, not sure he understood correctly. _No one_ wanted him for his strength. Status, maybe, but not the alpha-like body that had come with the serum. Even Peggy’s initial interest had been in the little guy he’d been before. Not that she had seemed to mind his transformation much if the fascination with his chest said anything, but no alpha looked at a body like his was and immediately found him attractive as an omega. Abruptly, he shook his head and tried to clear the heat-fog from his brain. “Forget it. Why did you approach me before if this is what you wanted?”

The laugh wasn’t nice, but it was honest. “Omega, those were _orders_. Why do you think I let you turn me down so easily? I wanted to find a way to get both of you away from HYDRA so I could have you all for myself.”

“I thought you were a HYDRA loyalist. What are you saying?”

“How did you think you escaped? The Soldier and I saved you. You think he’s your friend? That he remembers you? He only remembers his order to keep you safe until I could come for you.”

“That’s not true,” Steve snapped, but it was too late. His mind was already turning over everything that had happened since Insight C. Too many pieces fit together with this new interpretation. “Bucky remembers. Some things. I _know_ he does. He has to.”

Distress pheromones were rolling off Steve now, enough to make Bucky shiver and whimper, reaching blindly for his nestpartner.

Rumlow said nothing, but there was a pitying note to his scent.

Steve shifted out of reach of Bucky’s groping hands. He felt sick and shaky and desperate and the yawning pit in his gut was matched only by the growing pulse of hungry fire under his skin. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, fighting the urge to whine. “I’m _his_ friend.”

“And I’m his mate. We both want you, omega. Wouldn’t you prefer _us_ to claim you than all of HYDRA?”

He shuddered. “What do you mean?”

“I said I’ll fuck you either way, but I won’t be the only one if you make me take you in. Do you know how many times I’ve seen _my mate_ take another alpha’s knot or another alpha’s seed? They’d fill him up with whatever Command thought was in HYDRA’s best interests that month. I had to try to keep him calm while the doctors inseminated him with Johann Schmidt’s frozen jizz. Twice. He cried the whole time. Thank fuck _that_ never took.”

There was no way Steve could hold back the distressed whimper that time. “No. Please. _No_.”

Rumlow leaned forward. “Yeah, just like that, Cap. That’s what he sounded like. That’s what _you_ will sound like. They had more but decided not to waste it on the Soldier. Sometimes an omega’s body won’t make pups for anyone but their bonded mate. Or maybe your friend got lucky. You think you’ll be the same?”

Steve shook his head desperately. _No. No no no nonononononono._

“I could get away with bonding the Winter Soldier under special circumstances, but both of you? Probably not. HYDRA would put you in a collar and leave you somewhere restrained for public use. I’d get to go first as my reward for bringing you in, but then I’d have to leave you to the rest of them. I’d come by as often my duties allowed. Maybe once the Soldier is back to his usual self I could bring him to see you with neither of you in heat and have him rape you too. Did you two ever do that before? Did you let him put his pretty little cock in you? Could you even get it up before the serum, omega? Did-”

“Rumlow,” Steve said thickly. He dropped his eyes to where alpha and omega remained tied. “Stop.” He knew his scent could do the talking. Distress. Desperation and distress. Oh god, he didn’t want this. He didn’t want this for either of them, but he couldn’t talk to Bucky and he couldn’t let Rumlow turn them over to HYDRA if there was even the smallest chance he meant what he said. Distress, but desperation. And now, submission.

Rumlow stopped. Butter, salt, popcorn, alcohol, and walnuts filled the room with the powerful smell of alpha satisfaction.

The blueberry cheesecake pheromones which had been muted by Steve’s unhappiness rebounded to assault Steve’s nose with familiar pleasure, relief, and _want_.

“Good choice,” said Rumlow. He pulled his deflating knot out to the sound of a sharp yelp of discomfort from Bucky. “Come clean me up, Soldier,” he demanded firmly and Bucky curled between the wall of the nest and Rumlow’s right side to first press his face into Rumlow’s hip and then shakily kneel up to bend and lick the fluids from his cock. It wasn’t _exactly_ presenting, but the sight and scent were close enough to make Steve’s breath catch. This was also the first time he’d seen all of Rumlow’s cock. It was big, as alphas generally were, but not as big as Bucky’s fist had always been. The dimensions had nothing to do with how intimidating it was.

Rumlow settled a proprietary hand on the back of Bucky’s head and threaded his fingers into dark hair to get a good grip to use to guide the omega to sprawl across his lap, ass in the air. Bucky made soft whimpering noises Steve dimly recognized as protests of overstimulation and _keened_ when Rumlow stuck two fingers in without preamble and scissored him open to show Steve the slick and come dribbling out of his loose pink hole.

Bucky reeked of sex and _pleased hopeful blueberry cheesecake_ and Steve’s entire being clenched with _want_ and _revulsion_. He didn’t want to know what Bucky was feeling hopeful about. Would it be better or worse if Bucky was hoping for pups or for Steve to join him in the nest with the alpha? Bucky was out of his mind because he was brainwashed and in heat.

Happy with Steve’s reaction, Rumlow rumbled, “Such a good omega for me. Fill you up so well.” He was bending over Bucky, but looking directly at Steve, who struggled to breathe through the intense eye-contact.

The alpha pulled at Bucky and squeezed the back of his neck, careless of the fresh bite, until Bucky dropped bonelessly to the alpha’s side with a sigh, passing immediately into unconscious or sleep. Rumlow licked his fingers clean. “Now you too.” He looked challengingly at Steve. “Get in the nest, omega.”

Steve fell into the nest, into the space left by Bucky’s warm body. The combined pheromones were so much stronger inside. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself, feeling cold and vulnerable and heartbroken.

Smiling, Rumlow said, “Was that so hard? Let’s be clear, now. Exactly what are you agreeing to, Cap?”

“My,” he swallowed heavily. This was happening. “My alpha should call me Steve.”

Nodding, Rumlow said, “That sounds reasonable. We’re gonna be a lot more intimate than first-name basis. What else?”

Startled, Steve met his eyes before looking down at the tops of his knees. “What do you mean?”

“Alpha. You call me alpha, Steve. I said we’d negotiate. You’ve heard my terms. What can I do to make our arrangement more palatable to you? I don’t care if you’re willing, but I don’t want to be fighting you later when we can settle our expectations now.”

Steve licked his lips. He didn’t think he could talk Rumlow out of the bite, but maybe… “If HYDRA does find us, you do your best to get us out again.”

“It might take some time, but agreed.”

“We’re… exclusive. I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“Rollins is my beta, so he’s part of the package. He’s not too interested in sex, but he’ll take care of you if I can’t make it. And you know I can’t guarantee I won’t be ordered to rape or seduce anyone else.”

HYDRA was truly disgusting. Steve couldn’t believe this personal surrender to Rumlow was the best option, but somehow it was. “Fine, but you don’t share us with anyone else. We’re your omegas and you’re our alpha.”

“I like that, Steve,” purred Rumlow. He was petting the top of Bucky’s dark head. “Anything else?”

“You don’t bite me until I ask for it,” Steve said, aiming for statement rather than plea.

Rumlow scoffed. “I told you. I want to hear you beg for it.”

“And if I don’t, this heat?”

The alpha considered that for a moment. “You let me mark you real well before I go.”

Relieved, Steve exhaled shakily. That and what he would ask for next would be what he was sure many alphas would object to the most. “Thank you, a...alpha. One more thing. Sometime in the future, when we’re all clear-headed and Bucky can say what he wants, we discuss the possibility of reciprocal bonding.” That would give them all equal influence and insight into each other instead of the bond being a one-sided leash on the omegas.

That got an incredulous bark of laughter. “No.”

“Then you let Bucky and I have the option of bonding with each other.”

“That’s queer, Cap.”

“I hear that’s legal these days,” Steve countered.

Rumlow scowled. “Not for long. Omegas belong with alphas. Guess I should have known since the Soldier said nestmate, not nestpartner. Good thing I came along, huh? No one’s gonna think you’re like _that_ now.”

This whole town probably thought they were like that already, but Steve couldn’t afford to upset Rumlow like that. He’d made his position clear.

“That it, omega?”

Steve wracked his brain for other conditions. It was getting harder to think. “No interference in our daily lives.”

“No, omega. I _will_ provide funds for you to keep you healthy and safe. Try to live like you did before and you’ll starve to death.”

“But-“ It was one thing to be forced to trade his body to stay free from HYDRA, but it somehow felt worse to receive money for it.

Rumlow shook his head firmly. “Steve. You didn’t get this far without me and I won’t risk you or the pups.”

_Pups. Oh, god._

“It’s the least any alpha could do, omega,” Rumlow assured. “I have documents and ID for both of you too. They’re as real as the ones you had before.”

Fighting the urge to scream or sob, Steve held himself more tightly and said nothing. The documents would help. That he wanted nothing from Rumlow was beside the point.

“We done now?” Rumlow inquired.

Reluctantly, Steve nodded. He didn’t look up.

“You’re not in heat yet, omega, and my pheromone blockers won’t wear off enough for rut to kick in until sometime tomorrow.”

There _was_ an explanation for how relatively unaffected the alpha seemed. Steve was relieved. He was terrified enough without thinking he knew even less about sex with an alpha than he thought he did.

Rumlow continued, “I could fuck you before that, but the Soldier needs my knot more, don’t you think?”

Steve whimpered. There was no other response he could make.

“In the meantime, how about you tell me what you want? Beg sweetly enough and I might give it to you the way you want. How’d you do it with Carter?”

“ _Never_ ,” Steve choked out.

Rumlow growled. “We don’t have to do this your way at all, omega. Either tell me your preferences or-”

“I’ve never been with anyone but Bucky,” Steve blurted, then immediately squeezed his eyes and body even tighter than before. He shouldn’t have admitted that. It had been a mistake. He wasn’t affected by the command an alpha could put in their voice, but apparently he was plenty affected by being naked in his heatnest with an angry alpha that instinct said he needed to soothe with obedience.

Silence stretched while Steve’s skin prickled under the alpha’s scrutiny.

“Oh, _omega_ ,” Rumlow breathed finally. He sounded almost _reverent_ and Steve shuddered. “You _are_ old fashioned. I bet it hurts to even think about taking my knot and not asking for my teeth.”

He was right. Steve and Peggy hadn’t been together like that because she would likely have ended up with Captain America and Sergeant Barnes both bonded and pregnant. There was a war on. They couldn’t take the time or the risk. It was one of many reasons Steve hadn’t taken up any of Natasha’s suggestions either.

“Yes, alpha,” Steve whispered miserably. Saving himself for an alpha who would bond him was one of the only ways he had _ever_ been a good omega according to the expectations he’d been raised with. Steve had been proud of himself for never being desperate enough to even consider sex with an alpha he didn’t want to be kept by.

He had never been _this_ desperate before.


	4. Chapter 4

“Tell me about your heats with Barmes,” said Rumlow.

“Bucky gets dehydrated,” Steve said, thinking of the water he’d dropped when discovered Rumlow in the nest.

Rumlow sounded amused. “I know _that_. He’s my _mate_.”

“He never drinks enough during heat,” Steve continued. There wasn’t a safer topic he could think of. “He’d slick more than I did too, but the serum fixed that.”

“I gave him some water before I started fucking him. Tell me how you _satisfied_ each other, omega,” Rumlow prompted impatiently. His interest was thick and savory.

“The usual ways,” Steve mumbled. “Not like we could have real sex.” What omegas did together without a knot involved might count _now_ , but that hadn’t been true at the time and Steve wasn't used to thinking of it that way.

The alpha shifted, arousal spiking again. “Yeah, I’m gonna need you to elaborate on that.”

“Hands, mostly,” Steve whispered. If he was quiet enough, maybe…

No good.

“Mostly? What would you have done if I wasn’t here?”

When Steve said nothing, Rumlow growled, “Look at me, omega.”

Unwillingly, Steve jerked his head up. “Fingers. My fist if he was lucid enough to cooperate.” _Mouths too, but his alpha wouldn’t approve of that. Rumlow’s made his opinion clear._

“Yeah?” Rumlow rumbled hungrily. The softened cock between his legs twitched.

“What do you _want_ from me, alpha?” Steve snarled in humiliated frustration. He looked away. It was stupid omega biology that made his mouth water when those fucking pheromones spiked.

That had been the exact wrong thing to say. Rumlow grinned. “How about a demonstration?”

“Of…” But he knew what was being demanded. “We should let him rest.”

Smirking, Rumlow said, “You won’t hurt him. He’s a supersoldier and I came prepared.” From between the pillows next to him, he pulled a plastic package. “You’ve never done this in this century, have you? Nitrile fisting mittens. This is a fifty-pack, but I can send Rollins to get more if we need them. You’ve got red and silver stripes, blue with a silver star, or silver with little shields to choose from. They were on sale. ‘Fraid you're not so popular these days. Had to order them online.”

Through gritted teeth, Steve said, “Gee, how thoughtful.”

“That’s right. As a good alpha, I’m concerned for your health and safety.”

“Funny. As I see it, you’re a selfish monster.”

Rumlow’s smirk widened into a smile and he stretched out in the nest. Steve flinched when he started running a bare foot up and down Steve’s calf. It made Steve’s blood boil and his insides melt to scent the self-satisfaction and challenge that went with the alpha’s expression.

“And as _I_ see it, you still haven’t done anything to _prove_ your submission or acceptance of your position, _omega_. Clock’s still ticking.” He tapped his headset meaningfully.

The sole of his foot was warm against Steve’s skin. The unwelcome caress stung like a burn, and Steve endured it with bad grace.

“Spread your knees,” Rumlow ordered. “Let me see you.”

Reluctantly, Steve did. No one but Bucky had ever looked at him like this. His breath came in shallow pants which he told himself were because of their combined body heat and not because of fear or any other reason. He knew the fresh slick on his thighs had to be visible. His pheromones had to be sweetening, ripening, as he came into season. It was all biology. His body was putting out the invitation. His head had nothing to do with that.

“You’re trembling,” observed the alpha. “And your scent… There’s no reason to be scared, omega. You’ve already lost. All you have to do is take what I give you now. I’ll give you everything you need.”

Rubbing salt into the wound didn’t Steve relax much. It would be easier to be pushed down and taken violently, but he imagined making him feel complicit was the point. It was another way to prove Steve had lost. Rumlow’s fantasy was sick, but not surprising.

“And what do I need?”

Sighing, Rumlow said, “The Soldier’s been my mate for over ten years. Don’t you think I’ve learned anything? The Soldier fucks hard and crashes harder between the waves. I bet you were always the one who had to take care of him in heat, huh?”

Steve huffed in self-deprecation and turned his head away. “Only fair. It was the other way around the rest of the time.” _If only one of us had been born an alpha. This wouldn't be happening. None of this would have happened._

The alpha was seemingly more interested in looking at Steve’s body than listening to anything Steve had to say. “Hmm. You look like you’re mostly hard. Think I could get you off like that?”

Fighting the immediate urge to curl up was impossible. Steve’s knees snapped shut. A growl from Rumlow had him jerkily reverse the motion. It wasn’t like he thought the alpha wouldn’t be touching him regardless. “Not this close to heat.”

“Might be fun to try,” Rumlow suggested. He shifted forward.

“No, thank you, alpha,” Steve refused as firmly as he could.

The alpha smiled widely. “So polite. I bet you and the Soldier negotiated weeks ago. You’re both the type to want to be prepared.”

They had, of course, but they hadn’t discussed anything close to the current situation. Steve said nothing. The flush of his skin hopefully hid any extra pink.

“Thought so. He agree to you putting your hand in him?”

Both of them had agreed to that, but they had thought it would be the other way around with Steve’s heat hitting first. Bucky’s had been an unwelcome surprise. There was no way to determine if Bucky was ready or willing _now_ unless he was lucid when he woke.

Rumlow was right and Steve _hated_ him.

“I need to wake him up.”

The alpha smirked and spread his thighs a little. “Come sit on my lap. You can reach him from here. He’s always more coherent after he’s been knotted and had a chance to rest.”

Steve rolled forward onto his knees and shuffled forward. He couldn’t avoid seeing Rumlow’s crotch, but he tried not to stare. The alpha’s cock was longer than anything he had seen in person before, and the slight bulge of the softened knot was alien outside of porn. He wanted it nowhere near him, but his body kept crawling across the short distance. He put a hand on the sheet-covered mattress that was the floor of the nest and the other froze above the alpha’s shoulder as he started to raise his body. He didn’t want to touch him, but he had to show enough compliance to convince Rumlow not to give them up to HYDRA.

It shouldn’t matter. He was going to let Rumlow rut him through the heat. Breed him.

He didn’t move.

“Turn around. Sit in my lap,” Rumlow growled.

The command in his voice didn’t affect Steve. For the first time in his life, he wished it did. Omegas could defy alphas. It happened all the time. Obedience was mostly social conditioning, according to what he’d read in this century before everything went to hell. The pheromone spike was hard to ignore, especially in heat when the effect of pheromones was so much greater.

The alpha grabbed Steve by the waist, picked him up, and moved him. Steve let him and tried not to shake. The skin against his was warm and a little sticky. He’d never been in this position with an alpha and his eyelids fluttered mostly shut as his body reacted to exactly what he was touching. He would barely have to shift position for the alpha to put it in him.

Buttered popcorn and walnut extract overwhelmed his brain for a moment. He panted and shuddered hard. He didn’t _want_ this alpha, but that would matter less and less the more he heated up.

“Mmm,” Rumlow hummed against the back of his neck and Steve jerked away before the hands on his chest reminded him that he was supposed to be placating this alpha with submission.

Steve had never been any good at not fighting. He should have been an alpha. A beta, even. He didn’t want this. The only time he had ever considered being omega a good thing was when Peggy had looked at him and fucking HYDRA had stolen that possibility the same way as it had ruined the rest of his life.

“I should slide right into you and fuck you while you’re fisting the Soldier,” Rumlow murmured, inhaling. “You smell so good, omega. I thought you were apples, but that’s not it, is it? There’s something green to it and something that catches on my tongue and at the back of my throat. Almost… lemon tea.”

It shouldn’t have been a big deal. Most people said crab apple. Some said applewood. The propaganda folks during the war had wanted to douse him in cinnamon scent and call it apple pie.

Steve’s mother had told him he was apple blossom and sorrel. No one else besides Bucky had ever been close enough to him during heat to pick out that lemony herbal sourness. By tomorrow, his pheromones would turn jelly-sweet, but the sourness would remain.

“Bucky,” Steve whimpered. “Bucky, wake up.”

Some stupid part of him expected Bucky to save him like he always had before. This was a nightmare. If Bucky was awake with him, maybe it would go away.

It didn’t. It only got worse.


End file.
